Tag: InternationalNews

{Main aide to cleric blamed for a failed military coup attempt has been detained, after Gulen’s nephew is also held.}

Turkish authorities detained on Saturday a key aide to Fethullah Gulen, the US-based Muslim cleric Turkey blames for a failed military coup attempt.

Halis Hanci, described as Gulen’s right-hand man, apparently entered Turkey two days before the abortive coup, a presidency official told reporters.

Earlier on Saturday, Turkish authorities also detained a nephew of Gulen in connection to the coup attempt, the Anadolu state news agency reported.

Muhammed Sait Gulen was detained in the northeastern city of Erzurum and will be brought to the capital Ankara for questioning.

Among possible charges that could be brought against him is membership of a “terrorist” organisation, the agency said, adding that he was also wanted over the leak of questions from the 2010 civil service exams.

It is the first time a relative of Gulen has been reported detained since the July 15 events. In May this year, another nephew of the former imam in self-imposed exile was detained in connection with schools run by the movement, according to a state media report at the time.

Pennsylvania-based Gulen is accused of “masterminding” the July 15 attempt to topple the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan through his movement – a claim he strongly denies. Turkey is seeking Gulen’s extradition from the US.

Widening purge

Turkey has detained over 13,000 people as part of a crackdown in response to a failed military coup, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said late Saturday, not long after the presidential guard became the latest target of the purge.

Of those detained, 6,000 have been placed under arrest.

Some 37,500 civil servants and police officers have so far been suspended, including many from the education ministry.

The rapid pace of arrests since the coup attempt has worried many of Turkey’s Western allies, who say they see the country going down an increasingly authoritarian road.

Presidential guard disbanded

Earlier on Saturday, Erdogan issued a decree to close 2,341 institutions – including schools, charities, unions and medical centres – in the wake of the failed coup.

Turkey approves three-month state of emergency after failed coup
The decree, which local media noted as being the first taken under the powers of the recently-declared state of emergency, also extends the legal time a person can be detained to 30 days.

Also on Saturday, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said authorities would disband the elite presidential guard after detaining almost 300 of its members in the wake of the failed coup.

“There will no longer be a presidential guard, there is no purpose, there is no need,” Yildirim said, speaking to A Haber channel.

The presidential guard is a regiment numbering up to 2,500 people, but at least 283 of its members had been detained after the attempted coup.

{President Ghani announces a day of mourning for the 80 dead, as he vows to take revenge against those responsible.}

Afghanistan is observing a national day of mourning after a twin suicide bombing at a protest march in the capital killed 80 people and wounded 230.

In a televised address, President Ashraf Ghani vowed to punish those responsible for the attack.

“I will take revenge against the culprits,” he said, declaring Sunday a day of national mourning.

Tadamichi Yamamoto, the United Nations official in Afghanistan, condemned the attack as a war crime.

The United States offered assistance to investigate the attack.

Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry has issued a ban on public gatherings of all types for the next 10 days.

Thousands of members of the Hazara minority took to the streets of Kabul on Saturday over a new power line, saying its route bypasses provinces where many of them live.

The attack targeting the protesters was quickly claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), a hardline group with a history of targetting the Hazara people.

“Two fighters from Islamic State detonated explosive belts at a gathering of Shi’ites in… the city of Kabul in Afghanistan,” Amaq, an ISIL-linked website, said.

Officials in Afghanistan’s main intelligence agency, the National Directorate for Security (NDS), said the attack was planned by an individual named Abu Ali, an ISIL fighters they said was based in Achin district in Nangarhar.

They said three bombers were involved in the attack.

Ambulances struggled to reach the scene, as authorities had overnight blocked key intersections with stacked shipping containers to control the movement of the protesters.

“I was in the crowd just a few meters away from the blast, it was so loud that I am still in a state of shock,” Mehdi Ali, a protester told Al Jazeera on Sunday.

“I saw dead bodies lying all over the area. Is this the value of human blood here?”

Another protester who is mourning the death of his friend killed in the blasts told Al Jazeera that they have ‘lost hope in the government’ and will ‘not be able to recover from the shock’.

“We were peaceful protesters asking for our rights, who did we harm? Why did I lose my friend? Did he deserve this?” Zafar, a protester, told Al Jazeera.

“We are shaken.”

Al Jazeera’s Qais Azimy, reporting from Kabul, said it was one of the deadliest attacks in the capital in years.

“The city of Kabul is totally in a shock right now,” he said.

“In the past ISIL has carried out attacks in the eastern part of the country, mainly suicide attacks, but not as far as Kabul – they were limited to Nangarhar province along the border with Pakistan,” Azimy added.

“If it is true that ISIL is behind this attack it shows the growing capability of the group.”

The Taliban denied any involvement and said in a statement sent to Al Jazeera that the attack was “a plot to ignite civil war”.

The Persian-speaking Hazara, estimated to make up about 9 percent of the population, are Afghanistan’s third-largest minority, but they have long suffered discrimination and thousands were killed during the period of Taliban rule.

The 500-kilovolt TUTAP power line, which would connect the Central Asian nations of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan with electricity-hungry Afghanistan and Pakistan, was originally set to pass through the central province.

But the government re-routed it through the mountainous Salang pass north of Kabul, saying the shorter route would speed up the project and save millions of dollars.

Hazara leaders in the country lashed out at the president, calling the decision prejudiced against their group.

{Interior ministry announces take-over of key security force from army in wake of failed coup.}

Turkish authorities have announced a shake-up of the security forces a week after a section of the army attempted to overthrow the government in a failed coup.

In the most significant institutional changes since the coup attempt, Interior Minister Efkan Ala said on Friday that the gendarmerie would in future fall under the interior ministry and not the army.

The gendarmerie, which is responsible for public order in rural areas that fall outside the jurisdiction of police forces, as well as assuring internal security and general border control, had always been part of the military and its removal is a blow to the armed forces’ clout.

“The gendarmerie will definitely be dependent entirely on the interior ministry,” Ala said, in an interview with the Turkish news broadcaster, NTV.

Claiming that the coup threat “is not yet over”, Ala also disclosed that authorities had cancelled a total of 10,856 passports “due to flight risk”.

Turkey also detained 283 members of the presidential guard, an official later told Turkish media. There are at least 2,500 members of the guard.

Turkey coup attempt: What happened that night?

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused exiled Turkish businessman and cleric Fethullah Gulen of orchestrating the violence and is demanding that the US extradite him.

Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania, denied any involvement and condemned the coup attempt.

{{State of emergency}}

The Turkish government imposed a state of emergency on Thursday, strengthening powers to round up suspects behind the failed coup and suspending the European human rights convention.

The European Union on Thursday urged Turkey “to respect under any circumstances the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms”,

In a joint statement, foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini and EU enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn criticised as “unacceptable” the sacking or suspension of tens of thousands of people in the education system, judiciary and the media, adding that they were monitoring the state of emergency “with concern”.

Ala, on the other hand, claimed that the state of emergency would not have any substantial impact on Turkish citizens’ lives.

“[The] state of emergency gives several additional powers to the government, but it does not mean that the government is going to use these powers.

“This is a mechanism that will allow the government to swiftly make decisions. Our citizens should be calm.”

‘Danger has not ended’

Meanwhile, Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim warned of a possible second coup attempt in speeches after the first Friday prayers since last week’s failed coup.

Yildirim said the risk of another coup had not disappeared, adding, however, that the government was in control of the situation.

He urged Turks to stay calm and said: “The danger has not ended but our citizens should not be anxious.”

After attending Friday prayers near the presidential palace in Bestepe, Erdogan also told his supporters the coup threat was not yet completely over.

“Our solidarity, our stand is going to continue,” he said. “Stay together,” he added. “God willing, the believers will win.”

“Up until yesterday there were clashes between the police and members of the military. There are some military bases and installations that have people in support of the coup held up in them,” Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal, reporting from the capital, Ankara, said.

“This operation by no means is over yet.”

{{Second coup attempt ‘unlikely’}}

However, several Turkish commentators said that the Turkish authorities’ claims about the possibility of a second coup attempt were “not realistic”.

“If you look at the political domain in Turkey and the societal domain, and if you look at the dynamics with in the Turkish military at the moment, I think a second coup attempt is highly unlikely,” Metin Gurcan, a Turkish military analyst and columnist for Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse, told Al Jazeera.

Gurcan explained that along with Erdogan and the government, Turkey’s opposition parties and citizens were also taking a “firm stance” against the coup attempt.

“At the political level, we have no room for another coup attempt,” he said.

“I had a chance to speak to high-level commanders yesterday, and I saw that they also consolidated their full control.

“As long as they preserve their poise another coup attempt is highly unlikely.”

Some critics of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) suggested that the government and Erdogan may be emphasising the possibility of a second coup attempt in order to legitimise their crackdown on Turkish opposition.

But, Gurcan said that, at least for the moment, the Turkish government deserved everyone’s support and Erdogan’s actions can be judged after “the country fully recovers”.

“Turkey needs more time to recover from this deep shock,” he said.

“After that the civil society in Turkey, including me, will be very critical of Erdogan when and if he makes mistakes while managing the very delicate situation.”

‘I call all investors to continue investing’

Later on Friday Erdogan addressed the parliament for the first time since the coup attempt and thanked all political parties in parliament for backing his decision to declare a three-month state of emergency.

“Some thought the economy would collapse if a state of emergency was declared … I call on investors to continue investing (in Turkey) as the public will move forward with major projects,” he said, to loud applause from lawmakers.

Erdogan previously insisted democracy would “not be compromised” and pointed out that France also declared an emergency in the wake of a series of bloody attacks on its citizens.

Erdogan said 10,410 people had so far been detained, with 4,060 of them remanded in custody, including more than 100 generals and admirals.

Turkey has started to close down schools run by Gulen’s organisation and may set up special courts for coup plotters and restructure the MIT intelligence service, the Hurriyet and Sabah newspapers reported, citing government sources.

Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag also told CNN-Turk that the period of pre-charge detention would be lengthened.

{Clashes erupt in Manbij after ISIL ignores 48-hour offer by US-backed rebels to leave besieged town without a fight.}

Sporadic clashes between the Islamic Sate of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and US-backed fighters have erupted in the northern ISIL-held Syrian town of Manbij after the group ignored a 48-hour offer to withdraw from the besieged town without a fight, opposition activists and a Kurdish official said.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said about 200 civilians fled the town on Friday. A 20-year-old woman among those fleeing died when she stepped on a land mine while trying to escape with her children, the Observatory said.

Members of the predominantly Kurdish US-backed Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) have been on the offensive in Manbij for weeks, backed by coalition airstrikes.

On Thursday, the Manbij Military Council – part of the SDF – said ISIL fighters were given 48 hours to leave the town with their “individual weapons,” saying this was their last opportunity to leave alive.

Sherfan Darwish of the SDF said the group did not respond to the offer and that sporadic clashes erupted on Friday. The ISIL-affiliated Amaq news agency said the US-led coalition carried about 20 airstrikes on the center of Manbij on Friday.

Manbij lies on a key supply route to the group’s de facto capital of Raqqa. If the town is captured by the US-backed fighters it would be the “biggest strategic defeat” for ISIL in Syria since July 2015, when the group lost the border town of Tal Abyad, said Al Jazeera’s Bernard Smith, reporting from Turkey-Syria border.

{{‘Human shields’}}

Meanwhile, US-led coalition spokesman Colonel Chris Garver said ISIL “used civilians as human shields and as bait” in an effort to draw the fire of the SDF toward civilians.

Garver’s comment comes after US-led coalition air strikes allegedly killed 56 civilians, including 11 children, as they fled on Tuesday from a village near Manbij.

Garver said the attack on Tuesday came after SDF fighters “observed a large group of Daesh [ISIL] fighters in a convoy who appeared to be readying for a counterattack” against US-backed troops in the area.

“A strike was called in on Daesh. The strike was against both buildings and vehicles.” Afterwards, the spokesman said, the coalition received both internal and external reports “that there may have been civilians in the area who are mixed in and among the Daesh fighters.”

Kurdish-led force advances on Syria’s Manbij

Garver said the first phase of the investigation – what he called a “credibility assessment” – would take no longer than a week and a half.

In Geneva, spokesman Jens Laerke of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said a convoy carrying assistance for 32,000 people arrived Friday in the hard-to-reach town of Halat al-Madeh in the central province of Hama.

“This is the first inter-agency convoy to Hama in 2016,” said Laerke, adding that the Syrian government had removed some “surgical and certain medical items” from the cargo.

The United Nations says there are nearly half a million people in besieged areas in Syria and an estimated 4.5 million Syrians in so-called hard-to-reach areas.

{The Iraqi army is turning to medieval tactics to secure the recently captured city of Fallujah from ISIL infiltration.}

The Iraqi military will use a medieval tactic to keep control of Fallujah after recapturing it from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group last month: It is digging a trench around the city.

The trench will have a single opening for residents to move in and out of the city, which is virtually empty since the offensive that defeated the ISIL fighters, Lt. Gen. Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi, deputy commander of the counterterrorism forces that led the successful campaign, told The Associated Press news agency.

It will be about 11 kilometers long and “will protect the city’s residents, who have lived through many tragedies, as well as security forces deployed there”, al-Saadi said in an interview with The Associated Press at his Baghdad headquarters.

Cutting off all roads but one will allow authorities to monitor the movements of residents more closely.

Fallujah has been a source of car bombs used against Baghdad, which is 40 miles (65 kilometers) to the east. Restricting traffic will be one way to try to stop any explosives-laden vehicles from leaving the city. Besides the trench, more modern security measures also will be used.

Personal details of the estimated 85,000 residents who fled during the May-June battle to liberate the city will be stored electronically, and forgery-proof ID cards will be issued, according to Mayor Issa al-Issawi. Cars owned by residents also will be issued display badges containing electronic chips.

The trenches will be about 12.5 meters wide and 1.5 meters deep.

Work has begun on the first leg, running about 6 kilometers on the north and northwest side of the city, al-Issawi told the AP. Digging the second leg, which runs 5 kilometers along the south and southeast, will begin soon, he said.

The western edge of Fallujah abuts the Euphrates River, providing a natural barrier. On the east side is the heavily patrolled main highway to Baghdad, which will be the sole entrance to Fallujah.

The two trenches run through open desert areas used in the past by militants, said Maj. Gen. Saad Harbiyah, in charge of military operations in western Baghdad.

Iraqis have used various earthworks, walls and fortifications eversince the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. During the war, Saddam had trenches dug around Baghdad, filled them with oil and set them ablaze, using thick, black smoke to obscure the view for US warplanes.

Since the war, Baghdad has become a city of concrete blast walls, erected to protect buildings but also to control the movement of people. During the 2006-07 sectarian violence between Shia and Sunnis, entire neighborhoods were sealed off by blast walls to restrict and monitor access.

In January 2014, Fallujah became the first major Iraqi city to be captured by ISIL. The group later swept through much of Anbar province, taking its capital, Ramadi, and much of the north, including Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul.

A US-led coalition and Iranian-backed Shia militia forces have helped the Iraqi army recapture territory from ISIL.

Baghdad attack: People in Karada united in grief
Security problems have plagued Iraq, especially in Fallujah. The city has been a center of Sunni opposition to Shia-led governments in Baghdad, with Sunnis complaining of discrimination at the hands of the country’s majority Shiites.

Fallujah residents have suffered under more than two years of rule by Sunni fighters of the ISIL group. That suffering could be exacerbated if the security measures are seen by residents as too heavy-handed.

Security measures like the trench may make little difference in the long run if there is no reconciliation between Sunnis and a government many of them see as oppressive, illegitimate and a tool in the hands of Iraq’s giant Shia neighbor, Iran. Shia hard-liners, in turn, see Sunnis as sympathetic to the fighters, many of whom view Shia as infidels.

The Iraqi government also plans to dig a trench along the border between Anbar province, where Fallujah is located, and neighboring Karbala, home to one of Shia Islam’s holiest shrines. Work also has begun on walls and trenches around vulnerable parts of Baghdad’s outer areas to guard against car bombs. In both cases, however, work has been slowed by lack of funds and corruption.

Fallujah faces its own internal differences as well. Some factions of its main tribal clans declared allegiance to ISIL, while others did not, prompting the hard-line fighters to kill prominent tribal members and blow up the homes of those who fled.

Iraqi authorities arrested about 21,000 Fallujah residents from among those who fled the city on suspicion of ISIL membership, according to al-Saadi. Following questioning, all were released except for about 2,000 who face further interrogation and possible prosecution, he added.

Tens of thousands of displaced residents will be allowed to return to Fallujah later this year, al-Saadi said.

“We must turn a new page with Fallujah. There is no other way for reconciliation,” said al-Saadi, a veteran of the government’s fight against militants in Anbar.

“We must punish those with blood on their hands, but not those who merely joined Daesh,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIL. “Revenge and mass trials will only breed more hatred and resentment.”

Government spokesman Saad al-Hadithi echoed al-Saadi’s view.

“We cannot judge people by their intentions. Only those who committed crimes will face justice,” al-Hadithi told AP. The government intends to rely on the local police force and Sunni tribesmen to maintain security in Fallujah, he said.

But the chairman of Anbar’s provincial council, Sabah al-Karhout, complained that “reconciliation efforts” were below what was needed and that much rides on how secure Fallujah residents feel when they return home.

“Marginalization must end so that calls for a federal system to disappear,” he said, alluding to a growing sentiment among Iraq’s Sunni Arabs for autonomy in their regions.

{German police say attacker who killed nine people before turning gun on himself was an 18-year-old from Munich.}

A shooting rampage at a busy shopping centre in Munich, which killed at least nine people, was carried out by a sole attacker, who then shot himself dead, German police said early on Saturday.

The third attack on civilians in Europe in just over a week sent panicked shoppers fleeing the mall in Germany’s third largest city as elite police launched a massive operation to track down what had initially been thought to be up to three assailants.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to convene her security council on Saturday. The shooting came just days after an axe rampage on a train in the same German state of Bavaria and just over a week after a truck attack in the French Riviera city of Nice that killed 84 people.

“The perpetrator was an 18-year-old German-Iranian from Munich,” police chief Hubertus Andrae told reporters, adding that there was no sign of any additional shooters involved in the incident.

The suspect had dual citizenship and “no criminal record”, Andrae said.

“The motive or explanation for this crime is completely unclear.”

Two men initially suspected as accomplices in the shooting who had left the scene in a car were later interviewed and cleared, police said.

Al Jazeera’s David Chater, reporting from outside the shopping centre in Munich, said that the attack appeared to be the work of one lone gunman.

“He was heard shouting at the top of the mall to a group of spectators … that he was German,” Chater said, referencing a widely-circulated video posted on social media.

“Police are looking at two aspects of his background: one that he might had been anti-immigrant, and the other that he might had been radicalised in some way.”

At least 21 people, including children, were wounded in the attack, 16 of whom were still being treated in hospital.

{{State of emergency}}

The shooter’s body was found about 1km away from the shopping centre. A red rucksack found near the body was being examined for explosives, police said.

The shooting triggered a series of evacuations of public places in the southern city, as well as suspension of public transportation and deployment of special forces.

Munich authorities said early on Saturday that people could now leave their homes after an earlier warning to keep off the streets.

They also said public transportation in the city was up and running again.
The shooting started shortly before 16:00 GMT, with authorities initially saying witnesses had reported seeing three gunmen.

A video posted on social media appeared to show a man dressed in black walking away from a McDonald’s fast food restaurant while firing repeatedly on people as they fled.

A wide area around the busy shopping centre was closed off as special forces rushed to the scene.

“The police was just flying by – another car about every 15 or 30 seconds,” Ryan Sink, who was passing by the shopping centre, told Al Jazeera.

“No one really knew what was going on,” Sink added.

“We were all pulling over frantically and watching them set up a perimeter … Police were telling people passing by to get out of the way and away from the buildings.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was being regularly briefed during the attack, Peter Altmaier, her chief of staff, said on Friday.

In response to the attack, Facebook activated its safety feature, allowing Munich residents and visitors to let their friends know they were unharmed.

{Brazil’s federal police arrests 10 people who allegedly pledged alliance to ISIL and planned to carry out attacks.}

Brazil has arrested 10 people on suspicion of supporting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group and allegedly planning to target next month’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Justice Minister Alexandre Moraes said.

The loosely organised group was made up of Brazilian nationals who kept in contact via internet messaging groups such as WhatsApp and Telegram, but did not know each other personally, the minister said on Thursday.

The group did not have direct contact with ISIL, though some of its members had made “pro forma” declarations of allegiance to the armed group, the minister said.

{{Brazil: Police accused of targeting black youths}}

“Those involved participated in an online group denominated ‘the defenders of Sharia’ and were planning to acquire weapons to commit crimes in Brazil and even overseas,” Moraes told a news conference.

“It was an absolutely amateur cell, with no preparation at all, a disorganized cell,” the minister said, adding that authorities decided to intervene when the group started to plan actions.

He said members of the group had visited a weapons site in neighbouring Paraguay which sells AK-47 assault rifles, but there was no evidence they had acquired any weapons. Two people will be brought in for questioning, in addition to the 10 already detained, he added.

“Police have confiscated their phones, their computers, and now [they] are prioritising the investigation [to understand] whether there are more people involved in this,” Al Jazeera’s Mariana Sanchez, reporting from Sao Paolo, said.

Interim President Michel Temer had called an emergency cabinet meeting following the arrests, the first under Brazil’s tough new anti-terrorism law approved earlier this year.

The minister said the leader of the group was based in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba, with others spread in nine Brazilian states.

A court in the state of Parana, where Curitiba is based, said there were indications that the group was planning to use weapons to achieve its aim.

About 130 officers took part in the operation in which 10 were arrested and two more were temporarily detained, the statement said.

The arrests were made in conjunction with 19 searches conducted in states across the country, ranging from the Amazonas region to the financial capital of Sao Paulo to Rio de Janeiro, where the Olympics open on August 5.

Last week, Brazil said it was bolstering security for the August 5-21 Olympics following the deadly lorry attack in the French city of Nice, which killed 84 people and left scores badly wounded. The attack was claimed by ISIL.

{Ultimatum by US-backed forces comes days after coalition strikes allegedly killed 56 civilians in the northern city.}

US-backed Syrian rebels have given the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group 48 hours to leave their stronghold of Manbij in Syria, after US-led air strikes nearby killed scores reported to be civilians.

Elsewhere in Syria, a monitor said at least 51 civilians were killed in bombing raids on rebel-held areas of the country.

Thursday’s announcement comes two days after strikes launched by the US-led coalition fighting ISIL (also known as ISIS) reportedly killed at least 56 civilians in the Tokhar area in the northern city of Manbij of the Aleppo governate.

“This initiative is the last remaining chance for besieged members of Da’esh [the Arabic acronym for ISIL] to leave the town,” the Manbij Military Council, part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance, said, according to AFP news agency.

The SDF, an alliance of Arab and Kurdish fighters backed by the US, launched an offensive against ISIL to retake Manbij late last month.

They have besieged the town and are advancing to the city centre under the cover of air strikes by the US-led international coalition.

The council said that ISIL fighters would be allowed to take individual light weapons with them.

The statement also called for civilians to try to leave the town or distance themselves from areas where clashes are taking place.

“We took this decision now after ISIL used residents as human shields, after the media pressure on us, and to protect whatever civilians are left in the town,” an SDF commander told AFP on the condition of anonymity.

{{Outrage over civilian deaths}}

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the civilians killed on Tuesday were villagers fleeing fighting in the village of al-Tukhar, 14 kilometres from Manbij.

The US-led coalition has said it is investigating reports of civilian deaths in the strikes.
{{US to investigate coalition strikes on Syrian civilian}}

“The US central command has confirmed to Al Jazeera that it was conducting air strikes in the area and says it needs to investigate allegations of whether civilians were injured or killed in this incident,” Al Jazeera’s Rosiland Jordan, reporting from Washington on Tuesday, said.

Syrian activists called for international protests over the incident, and local demonstrations have already been held inside Syria.

The opposition Syrian National Coalition on Wednesday urged the US-led anti-IS alliance to halt its strikes to allow a thorough investigation into what it termed a “massacre”.

Coalition president Anas al-Abdah said the alliance was responsible for the “crimes” in Manbij, which he said killed at least 125 civilians.

And there has also been international consternation, with the UN children’s agency UNICEF saying it had received reports up to 20 children might have been killed in the incident.

“No matter where they are in Syria or under whose control they live — absolutely nothing justifies attacks on children,” said UNICEF’s Syria representative, Hanaa Singer.

Rights group Amnesty International also expressed alarm and demanded “a prompt, independent and transparent investigation.”

The Pentagon has acknowledged 41 civilian deaths in its strikes in both Syria and Iraq since 2014, but the Observatory has reported nearly 600 civilians killed in US-led raids in Syria alone.

Clashes and air strikes continued on Thursday in Manbij, where SDF forces advanced overnight, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said SDF fighters seized a southern district of the town, “bringing them the closest they have been to the centre of Manbij”.

{{Further civilian casualties}}

On Thursday afternoon, the Observatory reported quiet in Manbij, though it was unclear if the calm was temporary or in response to the SDF’s ultimatum.

Earlier in the day, the monitor had reported additional US-led air strikes and it said the SDF had advanced inside the town overnight.

Elsewhere in the country, the Observatory said at least 51 civilians had been killed in bombardment of rebel-held areas.

It said at least 13 people, including three children, were killed in government air strikes and shelling on the Eastern Ghouta area outside the capital Damascus.

Another 23 people were killed in strikes in Idlib province, though it was not clear if they were carried out by the regime or its Russian ally.

Government bombardment also hit two neighbourhoods of the rebel-held east of Aleppo city, where 15 people were killed, among them six children, the Observatory said.

Opposition-held neighbourhoods of Aleppo have been effectively under siege for the past two weeks, after government forces severed the only remaining supply route into the east of the city.

The UN on Thursday called for a weekly 48-hour truce in Aleppo to allow aid deliveries to the besieged east.

Jan Egeland, the head of the UN-backed humanitarian task force for Syria, warned that more than 200,000 people in eastern Aleppo were “on the brink of starvation”.

“Humanitarian convoys are ready, humanitarian workers are ready. We have the supplies. We need a break in the fighting,” he said.

ISIL has held the city since 2014, the year that the armed group seized control of large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq and declared its “caliphate”.

{Video emerges showing moments before Charles Kinsey was shot by Florida police as he lay in a street helping a patient.}

A black therapist in the US state of Florida trying to calm a man with autism in the middle of the street says he was shot by police, even though he had his hands in the air and repeatedly told them that both were unarmed.

The moments before the shooting on Monday were recorded on cellphone video, showing Charles Kinsey lying on the ground with his arms raised, talking to his patient and police throughout the standoff with officers, who appeared to have them surrounded.

“As long as I’ve got my hands up, they’re not going to shoot me. This is what I’m thinking. They’re not going to shoot me,” he told WSVN-TV later from his hospital bed, where he was recovering from a gunshot wound to his leg.

{{“Wow, was I wrong.”}}

The shooting comes at a time of growing tensions and increased protests against the disproportionate number of African Americans killed by the police.

North Miami Police Chief Gary Eugene said on Thursday he had asked Florida state officials to lead the investigation into the shooting.

Eugene said officers responded to a 911 emergency call about an armed man threatening suicide, but the chief told reporters no gun was recovered at the scene.

Kinsey said he was trying to calm his 23-year-old patient who had run away from the group home where he works.

“All he has is a toy truck in his hand,” Kinsey can be heard saying in the video, speaking of his patient, who was holding a toy. “That’s all it is. There is no need for guns.”

Al Jazeera’s Andy Gallacher, reporting from North Miami, said: “The video at that point goes black, but we are told that a police officer fired three rounds towards Kinsey, one of them striking him in his leg.

Gallacher said the incident came “at a very sensitive time” in the US.

“We had recently two officer-involved shootings of African American men, and eight officers targeted by other gunmen who allegedly were going after them in response to those shootings.”

{{Black Lives Matter protests}}

Baton Rouge, in the US state of Louisiana, recently became the scene of large protests against police brutality after officers shot dead 37-year-old Alton Sterling on July 5 outside a supermarket, claiming he had a gun.

The father of five had been selling CDs.

Footage of the moment Sterling was killed was also captured on a mobile phone and circulated online, sparking outrage and then protests.

Sterling’s killing was followed the next day with another police shooting. An officer killed a 32-year-old black man, Philando Castile, at a traffic stop in the midwestern US state of Minnesota. The aftermath of the shooting was also captured on video and streamed live by Castile’s girlfriend on Facebook.

The deaths sparked outrage and protests in many cities across the US.

Just days later, five white police officers were shot dead at one such protest in Dallas, Texas.

Police identified Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, as the suspect and said he had set out to kill white people. Police shot and killed Johnson after the incident.

The Black Lives Matter movement – which campaigns against police killings of African Americans – disavowed the killing of the officers and said in a statement it stands for “dignity, justice and respect”.

The Guardian has documented at least 598 people killed by police across the US so far this year. From that total, 148 – nearly 25 percent – were Black, although African Americans constitute only around 13 percent of the country’s total population.